Fabio Luisi to Conduct Upcoming Met Götterdämmerung Performances, Carnegie Hall Concert, as Levine Continues Recuperation

Fabio Luisi. Photo by Matthias Creutziger courtesy IMG Artists.

The Metropolitan Opera announced that principal conductor Fabio Luisi will conduct the company's upcoming performances of its new production of Wagner's Götterdâmmerung as well as a scheduled Carnegie Hall concert with the MET Orchestra featuring Renée Fleming. For those performances, Luisi replaces Met music director, James Levine, who is continuing his rehabilitation following a fall in September that necessitated emergency surgery to repair a damaged vertebrae. 

The Met's new production of Götterdämmerung premieres on January 27 and will receive subsequent performances on January 31, February 3, 7 and 11; the MET Orchestra concert featuring Fleming is scheduled for January 15. Luisi similarly substituted for Levine in pacing the company's new productions ofDon Giovanni and Siegfried, which premiered on October 13 and October 27, respectively. 

On September 6, the Met announced that Levine had withdrawn from all fall-season performances with the company following the emergency surgery, and that he hoped to return in time to lead the company's new Götterdämmerung as well as the concert at Carnegie Hall. Levine is still scheduled to conduct the company's first full performances of Robert Lepage's new Ring cycle — which will play in three cycles  between April 7 and May 12 — as well as a May 20 MET Orchestra concert at Carnegie Hall.

Levine, who also underwent surgeries on May 31 and July 20 of this year to address spinal stenosis, announced in March that he intended to step down as Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra on September 1, after health considerations precluded him from taking part in the orchestra's spring andsummer Tanglewood seasons, as well as the Metropolitan Opera's recent tour to Japan. In April 2010, Levinewithdrew from the remainder of the Met season and the entire Tanglewood season following corrective surgery for lower back problems; a surgery to repair a herniated disc in September 2009 similarly forced the conductor to withdraw from a number of Met at Boston Symphony Orchestra performances. In July 2008, Levine was forced to cancel his involvement in the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Tanglewood Season after he underwent surgery to remove a kidney that had a malignant cyst.